Pope, Dudley Convoy

World War 2 Battle of the Atlantic saga, with its pivotal action taking place during a convoy run from Liverpool to Freetown in West Africa. Pope’s hero, Lt. Ned Yorke of the Royal Navy, is temporarily vetted to a merchant marine cargo liner in an attempt to find out how a series of convoys had been attacked from within their ranks by a lone wolf submarine. While much of the action – and plot line – borders on the improbable, Pope nevertheless does manage to conjure up a somewhat convincing picture of the tensions rife between Royal Navy officers and their counterparts in the Merchant Navy (as the merchant marine is dubbed in Great Britain). A few days out on convoy duty Yorke has an epiphany of sorts when he realizes that “officers and master in the Merchant Navy had much the same kind of band, or brotherhood, that knitted the Royal Navy: as boys, many of them had started off together at one of the nautical training colleges, like Pangbourne, Conway or Worcester; they had over the years met in distant ports, knocking back strange drinks in smokey bars; came together again for the few months spurt at nautical school to swot before sitting for a higher competency. Obviously there were friendships going back twenty or thirty years which people like Hobson [Captain of the merchant ship on which Yorke was traveling] had seen cut short when a ship was torpedoed and sunk, drowning men he had known since his ‘teens.” Thus emotionally charged up, Yorke goes on nearly single-handed to defeat the Nazi lone wolf threatening his convoy, and with a thrilling (and implausible) climax.